Law of Thermodynamics and Recycling - Assignment Example

Using the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics Explain Why A Properly Designed Source-Separation Recycling program Takes Less Energy And Produces Less PollutionThan A Centralized Program That Collects Mixed Wastes Over A Large Area And Hauls It To A Centralized Facility Where Workers Or Machinery Separate The Wastes For Recycling In Relation To 2nd Law of Thermodynamics Answer: The rationale why a properly designed source-separation recycling program takes less energy and produces less pollution than a centralized program that collects mixed wastes over a large area and hauls it to a centralized facility where workers or a machinery separate the wastes for recycling may found in understanding the characteristics and application of the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics, also known as the entropy law. What is Entropy? Requadt defines to Entropy as the amount of energy that cannot be converted into mechanical work. (Requadt, 2010). The term entropy is a measure of the degree to which energy has lost the capacity to perform useful work. Hall, explains, “Second Law of Energy (Second law of thermodynamics): You cant breakeven.   Energy quality: According to the first energy law, energy can neither be created nor destroyed, one might think there will always be enough energy. Yet when you fill a cars tank with gasoline and drive around something is lost. If it isnt energy, then, what is it? The second law of energy, also known as the second law of thermodynamics provides the answer to this question. Energy varies in its quality or ability to do useful work. For useful work to occur energy must move or flow from a level of high-quality (more concentrated) energy to a level of lower-quality (less concentrated) energy like manifestation of the Second Law can be stated quite simply: Heat always flows spontaneously from hot (high-quality energy) to cold (low-quality energy). Heat energy will not flow from a cooler to a warmer body. It would be foolish to try to warm our hands on a block of ice although there is considerable heat in the ice. If we compare the heat of ice with the heat of liquid hydrogen, ice would appear to be very hot, indeed. It would be easy to build a machine that runs on the heat differential between the cold block of ice and the much colder liquid hydrogen. However, since the heat in the ice is at a much lower level than the heat in our body, heat cannot flow from the ice to our hands. We cannot warm our hands by immersing them in ice. We have always known this fact. Now we know why we cannot warm our hand by touching a block of ice. Any time work of any kind is done some energy is lost. In every mechanical operation a certain amount of energy becomes unusable, spread out into random, disordered molecular activity in the form of sound waves or increased heat. This fundamental law of physics is also often stated as the law of increasing entropy. Entropy refers to the amount of energy that cannot be converted into mechanical work. "Disorder" and "randomness" are close synonyms. High entropy refers to a state of great disorder” (Hall, 1991). Another example how the 2nd law applies, take for instance internal combustion of an automobile engine. This is only about 20% of the high-quality chemical energy available in the gasoline that is converted to mechanical energy used to propel the car; the remaining 80% is degraded to low-quality heat that is released into the environment. In addition, about 50% of the mechanical energy produced is also degraded to low-quality heat energy through friction, so that 90% of the energy in gasoline is wasted and not used to move the car. Entropy signifies the dilution, the randomization of energy. Energy cannot be created or destroyed. It can be transformed into mass, chemical energy, heat energy, latent energy and work, but it cannot be created and it cannot disappear. To further illustrate, a good example would be the Salt crystals. Salt crystals may be dissolved in a beaker of water without losing its identity as salt. The salt became more randomized when it dissolved in the water. The Law of Entropy decrees that it cannot reconvert itself to the less randomized, crystalline version. The salt cannot reconstitute itself as crystals, unless we introduce external energy to evaporate the water. Given the above, the second energy law tells us that high-grade energy can never be used over again. We can recycle matter but we can never recycle high-quality energy. Energy tends to flow or change spontaneously from and concentrate and ordered form to a more dispersed and disorder form. The well planned source-separation recycling program exhibits less energy and pollution because it is considered an open system. It requires less entropy and randomization as compared to the centralized recycling facility (a closed system) where it requires high quality energy especially for mixed wastes, therefore entropy is known to be at high levels on this account. We may therefore conclude that unless we understand the nature of entropy, we cannot resolve the deleterious effects that make it difficult to achieve desired results. Therefore, a profound knowledge of the Second Law is extremely important to understand laws of nature and how we should address properly. WORKS CITED: Hall, Steve. 1991. The Second Law of Thermodynamics. Retrieved from http://www.aboundingjoy.com/2ndlaw-fs.html Matter and Energy Laws: A Primer. Retrieved http://bioweb.wku.edu/courses/biol280/280mat.html Requadt, W. E. (2010) Entropy: The Ultimate Pervasive and Most Natural Force, How Life Really Works. n.p. Retrieved from http://www.rationality.net/entropy.htm U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Wastes-Resource Conservation-Reduce, Reuse,Recycle. Updated May 06, 2010 Retrieved http://www.epa.gov/osw/conserve/rrr/recycle.htm Wastes are inevitable in a consumer society particularly to highly industrialized societies. Today, there is a growing concern to protect the environment from extreme pollution as well as to observe energy conservation through community efforts channeled to proper waste and recycling management. This is in response to avoid any acknowledged adverse effects to mankind brought about by the depletion or degradation of environment. To determine the rationale why a properly designed source-separation recycling program takes less energy and produces less pollution than a centralized program that collects mixed wastes over a large area in relation to the 2nd Law of Thermodynmics, one must know a little background about thermodynamics. 1. 2nd Law of Thermodynamics We know from Einsteins famous formula E = mc2, mass and energy are freely convertible into each other. The Hydrogen Bomb demonstrates this conversion in a spectacular fashion. Most of the energy it generates is due to the conversion of matter into energy. Such conversion of matter into energy, and vice-versa. In cognizance of these basic facts, we can stipulate that energy is the basic raw material. Energy is essentially a heat phenomenon. Heat and work are mechanisms by which systems exchange energy with one another. In order for energy to perform work, a difference must exist between energy at a high potential and energy at a more randomized, diluted, potential. The term entropy is a measure of the degree to which energy has lost the capacity to perform useful work. Entropy, as expressed by the Second Law of Thermodynamics, is an all pervasive natural force, similar in importance to gravity or electro- magnetism. The whole subject of Thermodynamics sounds like a very complicated affair. Indeed, it is both very simple and extremely complex. There are three Laws of Thermodynamics, but we need to concern ourselves only with the first two laws because they are closely interwoven. and can actually be expressed in one sentence: The total energy content of the universe is constant and the total entropy, the non-usable energy, is constantly increasing. There you have it: The combination of the first and second law of thermodynamics. Very interesting, but what does it mean? It means that energy cannot be created or destroyed. It can be transformed into mass, chemical energy, heat energy, latent energy and work, but it cannot be created and it cannot disappear. Energy is also in a constant, inevitable and irreversible process of becoming increasingly randomized. Salt crystals may be dissolved in a beaker of water without losing its identity as salt. The salt became more randomized when it dissolved in the water. The Law of Entropy decrees that it cannot reconvert itself to the less randomized, crystalline version. The salt cannot reconstitute itself as crystals, unless we introduce external energy to evaporate the water. The second law, also known as the ‘entropy law’, states that with any thermodynamic process, in an isolated system, the amount of energy available for work, in other words energy with low entropy, decreases with use (Faber et al., 1996, Costanza et al., 1997). Entropy refers to the amount of energy that cannot be converted into mechanical work. “ The second law of thermodynamics was first expressed in stated form by the German physicist, Rudolf Clausius (1822-1888). He observed that "it is not possible to construct an engine whose sole effect is the extraction of heat from a heat source at a single temperature and the conversion of this heat completely into mechanical work."1 In other words, when mechanical work is done in a system, even though there will be no loss of energy in the system (law of conservation of energy), there will be a loss of useful energy. Some of the energy will be dissipated and lost in the form of heat and random energy (e.g. friction). There is no such thing as a perfectly efficient engine. Separation at source refers to the practice of setting aside post-consumer materials and household goods so that they do not enter mixed waste streams. The purposes are recycling, reuse or improved waste management. In this context, the notion of entropy2, which concerns the transformation of energy and material being subject to the laws of thermodynamics, is central. The first law of thermodynamics indicates that matter and energy are constant in any closed system, can neither be created nor destroyed, but can appear in different forms, such as heat, chemical energy, kinetic energy, work etc. It was the observation that energy and matter are transformed in economic processes as low-entropy energy and raw material enter the economy and then leave it as high entropy waste and dissipated energy that led Georgescu-Roegen to the statement that the economic process is subject to the second law of thermodynamics. Accordingly, the complete recycling of matter is impossible in a closed system (Faber et al., 1996; Gowdy, 1999).The 2nd Law of Thermo Dynamics is also known as the entropy law. But what is Entropy? Entropy refers to the amount of energy that cannot be converted into mechanical work. how it relates to the recycling process First, we have to have an overview of the broad picture of what the principle lies behind this said Law and relate each elements with that of the recycling process. The second law of thermodynamics was first expressed in stated form by the German physicist, Rudolf Clausius (1822-1888). He observed that "it is not possible to construct an engine whose sole effect is the extraction of heat from a heat source at a single temperature and the conversion of this heat completely into mechanical work."1 Abstract This paper uses the second law of thermodynamics to explain why a properly designed source-separation recycling program takes less energy and produces less pollution than a centralized program that collects mixed waste over a large area and hauls it to a centralized facility where workers or machinery separates the waste for recycling. From the Paper "Waste is an unavoidable consequence of our consumer oriented, highly industrialized society. In 2000, Canadians generated 1021 kg of non-hazardous waste per capita (Statistics Canada, 2002). 747kg of this waste were disposed of per capita (Statistics Canada, 2002), while the rest was recycled. Torontonians for example recycled 699 tonnes of household waste in 2001 (Ministry of Environment, 2004). Household waste generation was 353kg per capita in 2000 (Statistics Canada, 2002). The situation is similar in most developing countries although the levels of recycling vary. Growing concern for the environment, constant increase in the amounts of waste produced, economic, land and social costs involved in developing new landfill sites and public opinion have brought about the need to approach waste management in a broader context. " source separation and collection followed by reuse and recycling of the non-organic fraction and energy and compost/fertilizer production of the organic waste fraction via anaerobic digestion to be the favoured path. Non-metallic waste resources are not destroyed as with incineration, and can be reused/ recycled in a future resource depleted society. (Wikipedia) Read More